Learn how the grammatical gender applies to adjectives
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Intro |
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| Michael: Do adjectives have a gender in Italian? |
| Ofelia: And does the gender of nouns have an influence on adjectives? |
| Michael: At ItalianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Mark and Karen Lee are walking past a car salon. Mark Lee says, |
| "I want a new car." |
| Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| Karen Lee: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| Michael: "I want a new car." |
| Karen Lee: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| Michael: "And I want a red scooter." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Adjectives qualify nouns. In Italian, all nouns have grammatical gender and are either singular or plural, a fact that determines the form of other words in the sentence, including the adjectives. In this lesson, you’ll learn how descriptive adjectives change according to the gender of the nouns they refer to. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let’s start with a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Mark says "I want a new car?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Ofelia as Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| Michael: In this case, the adjective "new", or in Italian: |
| Ofelia: nuova |
| Michael: agrees with the noun "car", or |
| Ofelia: macchina |
| Michael: which is singular and feminine. The dictionary form, or the base form, of the adjectives is conventionally the masculine form, in this case |
| Ofelia: nuovo |
| Michael: As you can hear, this ends in |
| Ofelia: -o, nuovo. |
| Michael: When a masculine adjective ends in -o, to form the feminine, you replace it with |
| Ofelia: -a. |
| Michael: That’s why the feminine singular form of the adjective "new" in Italian is: |
| Ofelia: nuova. |
| Michael: Let’s hear the full sentence one more time. |
| Ofelia: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Karen says "And I want a red scooter?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| Michael: Here, the adjective “red”, or in Italian: |
| Ofelia: rosso |
| Michael: agrees with the noun “scooter”, or |
| Ofelia: motorino |
| Michael: which is singular and masculine, so it also corresponds to the adjective base. Let’s hear the full sentence one more time. |
| Ofelia: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| Michael: If the same adjective is next to a feminine noun, it changes to |
| Ofelia: rossa. |
| Michael: Also, in this case, the final letter |
| Ofelia: -o |
| Michael: changes into |
| Ofelia: -a, rossa. |
| Michael: This is the rule for inflecting all the adjectives ending in -o, depending on the gender of the noun they refer to. Also, the plural forms are easy to remember. For the plural masculine, the final letter changes into |
| Ofelia: -i, for example, rossi. |
| Michael: and for the plural feminine the final letter changes into |
| Ofelia: -e, for example, rosse. |
| Michael: There is another group of adjectives, whose base form or masculine form ends in |
| Ofelia: -e, for example facile |
| Michael: which means “easy.” Let’s hear a sample sentence with a masculine noun: |
| Ofelia: L’esame è facile |
| Michael: which means “The exam is easy.” The good news for this second group is that the feminine form is exactly the same. Let’s hear a sample sentence with a feminine noun: |
| Ofelia: La domanda è facile |
| Michael: which means “The question is easy.” Also, the plural form for this group is the same for both masculine and feminine. Let’s hear it |
| Ofelia: facili |
| Michael: The final letter changes into |
| Ofelia: -i, facili. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that, in Italian, adjectives are inflected depending on the noun they refer to. You also learned that descriptive adjectives are divided into two groups—those ending in |
| Ofelia: -o, for example, rosso or nuovo. |
| Michael: and those ending in |
| Ofelia: -e, for example, facile. |
| Review |
| Michael: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after the native speaker focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how to say "I want a new car?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Ofelia as Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Mark Lee: Voglio una macchina nuova. |
| Michael: And do you remember how to say "And I want a red scooter?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: E io voglio un motorino rosso. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Here’s a tip. The adjective can be useful to infer a noun’s gender, which sometimes is not clear. For example, |
| Ofelia: pigiama, |
| Michael: even if it ends in -a, is masculine. You can easily understand that, if we pair the same noun with an adjective, for example |
| Ofelia: pigiama nuovo |
| Michael: which means “new pajamas,” as clearly indicated by the adjective. Now, can you guess the gender of this phrase? |
| Ofelia: mano rossa |
| Michael: this means “red hand” and it’s feminine, as you can see from the adjective! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Ofelia: A presto! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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